Adventures and Misadventures of a Science Fiction Writer

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NaNoWriMo, Week Two.

I’m going to make it. I’ve been slightly ahead of schedule every day, and I reached the halfway point, (25,000 words) a day early. To do this, I have had to put in a lot of hours, but it’s a pace I can maintain. The tricky part will be making the end of the story come close to the 50,000 word mark. I doubt that I’ll run out of story, but I might have to rush through to the ending.

Like NaNo generally, that would likely prove to be a worthwhile exercise. Here’s a thing that intrigues me. When I wrote Avians of Celadon, I worked on it whenever the mood hit me, or I had an idea. I just looked back at my old files, and I can see that the first version to have over 25,000 words didn’t happen until four months after I started. Maybe more. For the first few weeks, before I realized I was writing a novel, I wasn’t very methodical about how I saved my files.

I’m writing sixteen to twenty times faster than those early days. Is it my best work? No. But neither were those first efforts. When I read early versions of Avians, I barely recognize it. The book had a different name. The planet had a different name. Most of the characters had different names. But the story was taking shape. That’s what I’m doing now, with Bandits of Celadon. Telling the story. Hashing it out for practice. Uncovering plot holes. And the opposite: discovering plot opportunities. I’ve had Aha! moments with those, and also with some dramatic scene endings.

Nano has put a stop to my procrastination. I’m writing every day. I catch up to my quota before dawn, before I do anything else. I come back later to build up a lead. I’m learning that I can write every day, and I can perform to a deadline.

I have written some scenes that I’m reasonably well satisfied with. With a little tidying up, they can be used. I’ve written a handful of lines that make me smile. For instance, my main character has a way of silently talking to her technologically advanced friends. She gets permission to reveal this secret to two people, one of whom is a boy she likes.

“Tell him the truth. As much as you need to.”
“What about Denver?”
“Him, too.”
“He’ll think I’m weird.”
“Princess, you hear voices. You are weird.”